Thief: A Bad Boy Romance (36 page)

T
he press conference
is slated for about two hours after dinner, which is enough time for me to
flee
the dining room as soon as I’m done and rush up to my room. I don’t know
where
Hunter’s stupid little secret passageway into my room is, but I shove both armchairs against the bookshelf just to be sure.

“Okay, I have to tell you something,” I say shakily into the phone.

“Oh my
God
, are you pregnant?”

I frown, wrinkling my brow as I reach into the bath to start the shower. “What? No— Jess I’m being serious.”

She laughs. “Sorry, I’ve been binging ‘Teen Mom’ all week. It’s the only channel that comes in English down here.

I roll my eyes, “Why on Earth are you watching television, dummy? You’re in fucking
Argentina
, go outside or something.”

“I
was
outside all day modeling that new line, and now I want to watch T.V.,” Jess says primly. “Judge-y much?”

I snort, “
Fiiiine
, watch your stupid shows.”

“I will,
thanks
,” she says with fake indignation, making me grin. “Wait, so what’s this big news?”

I know it’s supposed to be a big secret, but the hell with it. The whole world’s going to know in a few hours, and I’ll be damned if I let my best friend hear about it by way of an Argentinian newspaper tomorrow morning instead of me.

“It’s about my mom.”

“Damn, is
she
pregnant? Dude,
that
would be news.”

“Baby-brain, will you let me finish?”

She laughs, “Sorry, go.”

“My mom’s getting married.”

Jessica whistles slowly, “Holy shit, Mads.”

“
Yeah.
”

“To? Wait, can you even tell me or am I going to get black-bagged for hearing this?”

“It’s going to be on the news in about hour, if you can manage to not tweet about your life for sixty whole minutes.”

“Exceptions can be made; shoot.”

“You know her Secretary of State?”

“Mads, how many times have you seen me
ever
watch the news or know anything about politics, aside from your mom running and all that?”

I grin, “The tall, silver-haired handsome guy that sometimes stands next to her at public things?”

“Shit!
That guy?
” Jess whistles. “Way to
go,
Ms. Adams!” she laughs. “Wait, so why are you so glum then? Is he a dick or something?” She mutters something, “I
knew
he was a dick, all those handsome political types are.”

“No, no, he’s actually awesome.”

“So…what gives?”

“Well— Okay, seriously— This… You really can’t spill this on twitter.”

“Mads, I’m
not,
okay?”

“His son is in the Secret Service.”

Jess snorts, “Man, talk about apples and tree—” She cuts off abruptly, “Wait— You mean — oh
shit
.” She starts to laugh, “Wait,
your
Secret Service guy?”

“Yeah,” I say glumly.

“His son is
Hunter
? S
uper hot
Hunter?”

I can feel my cheeks blush, “Jess, gross, he’s not hot.”

“
Uh
, yeah, girl, he is. Like, on any scale, that guy is hot.”

“Jess he’s my
stepbrother
; eww?”

“Not yet he’s not! And besides, who fucking cares if he is?”

“What, you don’t see how weird that would be?”

“Uh,
no?
” she giggles. “So what are you so bummed about if you’re somehow immune to your stupidly hot new stepbro’s charms?”

“Well, I mean, he’ll be the President’s
stepson
, which takes him off the Secret Service,” I say quickly. “It just sucks for him, because he worked hard for it, and sucks for me because I have to get someone new for the detail.”

“Someone not nearly as hot, you mean.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“And you’re in denial about how much you wanna bang your hot stepbrother.”

“I’m hanging up now, okay?”

She laughs, “Go get pretty for T.V., I’ll see if I can go find an English news station and watch.”

“Not a word, okay?”

“Chill, your dirty little secret’s safe with me.”

“Jess—!”

“Byyyye.”

* * *

“
A
ll you have
to do is sit up there and smile, okay?” Emma smiles as she holds my shoulders and looks into my face while the prep crew finishes up with my perfectly coiffed hair.

My makeup is
perfect
, and my demure and conservative skirt suit — like
all
the other ones I end up wearing to everything like this — is fit and smoothed to perfection. Even the way I’m supposed to smile — “not
too
toothy, okay?” — has been micromanaged and
perfected
for the camera.

Because we’re the
perfect
American family; the perfect
first
family.

Emma peers into my face and smiles reassuringly.

“You’re going to be fine up there, Madison,” she says, patting my arm, as if the reason for the tenseness writ across my face is the fact that I have to be on international television in ten minutes.

Of course, she doesn’t know that the reason my heart is pumping a million miles an hour and my knees keep shaking is that I know that when I sit there in front of those cameras with
him
right next to me, I’m going to feel like the whole
world
can see through our sham. The whole freaking world is going to see Hunter and me smiling away up there, and the wild paranoia in me screams that they’re all going to
know
.

They’re going to
know
that I know what his lips feel like on mine.

They’re going to
know
that I can’t stop thinking about his cock.

They’re going to
know
that as terrified as I am about being up there in front of them, I’m also
still wet
from earlier.

It’s all crazy-think, and I know that, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. Emma gives me a final pat on the arm before she holds her finger to the com in her ear and mutters some words into her microphone, scurrying away with her clipboard.

“You know, they say T.V. adds ten pounds.”

I scowl as I turn to glare at Hunter while he comes up behind me in the backstage area of the press conference area. My mother is finishing up her initial statements about her education bill before we’re all going to join her on stage at the long conference table for part two.

Yeah, part two: the announcement.

“You know,” he says, grinning at me before looking around the dark, curtained backstage area. “We gotta stop meeting in places like this.”

“I
agree
.”

“It gives me
way
too many ideas,” he growls into my ear, letting his hand trail over my ass.

I swat him away as I move a step back from him. He’s
grinning
and making jokes about this, as if the whole thing is
funny.
As if what we’re doing isn’t
that much closer
to being exposed and consequently shattering both our families, if not the
nation
.

‘What we’re doing’? What the hell ARE we even doing?

I mean honestly, what is this thing between Hunter and I? Over-active hormones? Is it just that I’m cooped up in the White House and behind security so much that he’s just the only option for flirtation and male attention?

“You look nervous.”

I shoot him a look, “Are you
not
?”

“Nope.”

“Well good for you.”

He grins as he moves much closer to me than a bodyguard should. “I’ve got something
much
more interesting to think about to keep my mind occupied.”

I’m blushing as the door next to us opens suddenly, sending Hunter stepping back from me.

“It was
one
cigarette!” Dexter’s grinning as a stern-faced Emma marches him in by the arm.

“
One
cigarette, Mr. Ryan, will be a P.R.
nightmare
if someone were to snap a picture of it, especially with the President’s announcement about the engagement to your father in a few minutes here.” Emma furrows her brow at Dexter. “And
especially
given your age.”

Dexter smirks at her. “‘My
age
’? What are you, like a year older than me?”

“In actual years or maturity, because she’s got you beat by centuries on the second count,” Hunter says with a grin.

Dexter shoots him a look. “Whose side are you on?”

Emma’s suddenly putting her finger to her earpiece and then quickly pushing Dexter towards the stage. “Never mind that Mr. Ryan, we’re on in three minutes.”

I start to follow, but suddenly I gasp as I feel myself get pulled back into the folds of the backstage curtains. “Hunter—!”

He spins me around, and suddenly I’m face to face and pressed
right
against him. The words I nearly spat at him, or the hand I was about to smack him with suddenly get lost somewhere else in my mind as I just
fall,
right into those piercing blue eyes.

“What are you doing?” I whisper, swallowing quickly and blinking as I get lost in the burning ice of his gaze.

“Just saying ‘break a leg’ up there,” he grins. “Oh, and I had a quick question.”

“We’re live in sixty seconds! Places on the stage!” I hear a voice call out.

“Hunter!”

“
One
question, doll.”

“
What!?
”

And then I’m gasping as he yanks me right against him, grabs my hand, and places firmly on something
huge
in his pants.

“I was just curious,” he growls into my ear. “If you’re as wet as I am hard.”

My heart leaps into my throat as I realize I’m holding his cock through his pants, and suddenly I jump as I feel his hand slide right up between my legs and beneath my skirt. His fingers stroke across the front of my panties, and I moan softly as redness blooms in my face.

Because I don’t even have to answer him. He knows from touching me
exactly
how wet I am.

“Madison! Hunter!”

And just like that, he’s pulling away from me, grabbing my hand, and yanking me onto the stage. I’m hoping to God that everyone just assumes I’m nervous when they see my red face. I pray that I don’t have to say a thing up there when my mother and Alec give the announcement, because I don’t think I could find words right then.

Because my head is still
lost
somewhere back there in that curtain, and my thoughts are still
entirely
centered on thing and one thing only.

How much I want him; how utterly and completely turned on I am sitting up there right next to him.

The stage manager counts down on his fingers, the lights go up, and my mother smiles at the camera.

It’s that exact moment that I feel Hunter’s hand drop to my knee under the table, sliding all the way up to the wet front of my panties.

My jaw
drops
before I quickly shut it, fighting everything I have not to turn and just stare like he’s insane.

Because he
is
insane, and
this
is insane. There’s a floor-length drape over the table, including on our side which cover our laps. But it doesn’t matter that no one can see us; it doesn’t matter that no one
knows
that Hunter’s fingers are sliding under the soaking wet edge of my panties and brushing across my pussy.